I am a city dweller: I have a husband, 3 children, 2 cats, a dog & a house, now entering its 11th year of being family renovated, in the gigantic metropolis of Toronto. I also have a garden which, after 18 years of my ministrations, looks increasingly like a bit of Ontario forest. I work long hours, often for very little money, as I am a meditation teach trying to balance the old ways of offering help to all those who ask for it & the need to keep my home in my hands, rather than giving it to the bank. In many ways, I am an average Canadian, with a "not so average" occupation & a strong set of ethics.

Embracing the full life of the householders while trying to maintain spiritual practice & inner development may seem sometimes like madness, an anachronous anomaly at the least. Everything in the city seems subsumed to business interests & the making of many dollars, the more the better! The environment & its care seem to have become a marketing ploy now stale - dated; development of the soul the purview of trendy marketers. Some of us escape for good, folding the household life like a tent & entering the life of the renunciate. This perhaps is their Karma or their Kismet, for who knows the by-ways of Fate? And some of us feel we cannot, yet hunger for the quiet & solitude we find in odd moments in out gardens. It is a fact that last year, garden suppliers in Canada reported a 13% increase in garden supply business, a clear market indicator that there is a thirst for something other than this mad lemming like rush to the grave.

Some of us spent part of our youth searching for wisdom in the mountains of India, New Zealand, Crete, Peru or wherever & our gardens may now be the last places we can remember the feeling of space / time expansion that comes with pausing to do simple things, like breathing in the aroma of a peony or planting a bed of impatiens (such a suitable name for the favoured Toronto flower). At least, we remember until our neighbours run their lawn mowers or someone turns on one of those horrible decibel-laden leaf blowers.

What to do, what to do? Contemplate trying a treat. It's not Club Med. Organized activities are liable to be few; the food is liable to be vegetarian, but you may be surprised at how delicious you find it. Exercise, yoga or gardening may be part of the programme. Great gouts of silent may be the order of the day. As the frenetic activities of the city life drop away, the overused adrenal system will quiet down; you may feel sleepy & begin to sleep soundly at night, like a baby, your dreams rich & vivid. As your body rests, your mind will reveal itself in all its restless, relentless word-making & scheming until in your walks, you begin to deeply hear the song of the birds which fill the air in these places, so many throats singing of joy & delight, alerting & chastising, all speaking in a language you do not know but whose beauty you suddenly realize you had forgotten.

Your ears turn outwards, your eyes as well. Your gaze feasts on the grass of the fields or the sight of an endangered butterfly or plant which refuge in these protected places where all life is valued as sacred.

Your sense of smell begins to expand, filled by the rich aromas of the earth. You fall in love with the beauty of all creation & your essence is filled with new energy. You begin to see your life in a context of the great rhythms of existence; your problems diminish & your wonder expands.

The effects of living with fewer activities, fewer obligations even for a short time is profound. Involvement with the ritual acts of prayer & contemplation provide a touchstone with the deepest parts of ourselves. We reconnect with the Divine which resides within each one of us. We "re-member" ourselves. Truly, as one of my teachers used to say, "A retreat is an advance."

And then you return to the city. What to do, what to do? Your challenge our challenge, is to find a way to bring this sense of harmony & balance & reverence for all creation back into our everyday lives. We must find a way to do that; we need to look for a church or a meditation center in the city which will support this perspective on a weekly or daily basis. We must learn to bring compassion & truthfulness & reverence into our homes, our businesses & our communities. The future of the society &, indeed, of our planet depends upon it.

By Catherine Jetsun Yeshe

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